Hi. I've been taking a sneaky peek at the postings to see if I can pick up any tactics for this game and I noticed the debate earlier this year about defence. I've only been playing a few days but I have to admit that my defence is shocking and I'm in dispair of the idiocy of my dinos sometimes, but I admit that this is because I am doing something wrong!

I played hockey (the English field version, not ice) at a very high level for around 20 years so I am down with the priciples of a flowing team sport. I am sticking to my man, not being drawn to the ball and then, in possession, getting into a good position early to receive the ball, change the point of attack and thinking about what pass you want to make before you've received the ball. That's all fine.

Problem is, I don't understand my dinos' gameplan and so am totally out of kilter with the rest of my team! I realised in a div 4 game that I was defending with 3 dinos v 5 of theirs and two of my guys were running around in the opposition half! Is this because I was playing 1-1-3 and it's a counter attack formation? Do you need to change your tatcis to suit of the opposition, or should you play to the formation that suits your style best (counter-attack, patient possession etc etc)?

Similarly in attack, I immediately try to get into space to give the ball carrier an option, to change the point of attack from one wing to the other to try to stretch the oppo and give runners more space, but I get ignored most of the time and the ball keeps getting plopped into crowded areas with no space until we're all tackled and are hit on the counter.

So, what am I doing wrong, what is your dino's gameplan and do formations mean that your dinos do different things?

Cheers experts! I need to get a new coach in to teach me some tactics!

It sounds like you are doing it right. I think the idea behind them being dinosaurs is that they are extremely dumb. Motivated, but dumb. They have "artificial stupidity". That's not to criticize the programming; it's very impressive to be able to make AI bots behave as dumb people would.

The most frustrating thing is when they abandon the dino in the endzone to go after the dino with the ball, who of course tosses it to the the one in the endzone for a score. Still, in the upper divisions they are less likely to do this. The other teams, I mean. YOUR team is always likely to do that!

axel wrote:
The most frustrating thing is when they abandon the dino in the endzone to go after the dino with the ball, who of course tosses it to the the one in the endzone for a score. Still, in the upper divisions they are less likely to do this. The other teams, I mean. YOUR team is always likely to do that!

The only reason why they abandon the dinosaur they are marking is because they know that the dinosaur who's got the ball has a free run in because he has lost his marker and is bound to score, so your team mate might as well go for him. I think he'd look much stupider just sticking to his man rather than making some small effort to stop the goal being scroed.

In an actual game humans have at least a chance of misthrowing, so going after the ball-carrier makes sense. Forcing him to throw creates a chance of an error.

In this game the throw is virtually certain to score, so leaving the downfield man is certain to cause a goal, while I find it is possible (very difficult) to stay just close enough to the downfield guy to discourage a pass, then try to tackle the runner just at the line. It's only worked once or twice but it was great! So I like the current system.

The probelm with abandoning the man as Sean describes is that sometimes an attacking dino on a two on one situation can be caught by a dino running back. So you get the frustrating experience of just about getting to the oppo dino only for him to lob the ball to his unmarked team mate as your covering dino has left his man to tackle the dino you were just about to.

Other things - Sean, has the game been programmed to make winning without conceding a point next to impossible? I can be cruising 4, 5, up to 8 nil and going great, then the opposition will score of some dumb ass mistake by my guys in the last 2 seconds. I've taken to recording my games on paper (sad, I know!) just to check and I have only acheived two wins to nil in over forty games.

Also, is it deliberatly difficult to win two consecutive dino championships? Again, I have won the league a good fifteen or twenty times, but rarely have I won it back to back and never three in a row. You conquor all before you, winning four or five games to win the championship and then next season, bang - 4-0 loss to the team that's just come up and in a relegation dogfight. Is this deliberate too?

Finally, transfers? Could you not have dino attributes (basic ones like speed, pass accuracy, vision for long passes) and transfer in from a limited pool? That might add a managerial element to it which may stop it getting a bit samey.

It hadn't occured to me that dinos were stupid! What makes people think they were anyway? Such Dino bigotry should be banned under UK law.

I think the competence of your dinos ? and that of the other teams ? varies randomly from season to season. As we all know, random numbers tend to produce clusters every now and again (two seasons of 10 point championships) but eventually you'll have a bad year.

I think it's just hard for dinos with such little defensive nous (sp?) to defend for three minutes without cocking up. I tend to get maybe one win to nil in 7 or 8 games.

Edit: it took me 6 games after posting this (all of which I won ). I beat Jurassic Steel 1-0, scoring with 13 seconds to go ... thought it might end up being my first ever 0-0!

Andywoolnough wrote:The probelm with abandoning the man as Sean describes is that sometimes an attacking dino on a two on one situation can be caught by a dino running back. So you get the frustrating experience of just about getting to the oppo dino only for him to lob the ball to his unmarked team mate as your covering dino has left his man to tackle the dino you were just about to.

Other things - Sean, has the game been programmed to make winning without conceding a point next to impossible? I can be cruising 4, 5, up to 8 nil and going great, then the opposition will score of some dumb ass mistake by my guys in the last 2 seconds. I've taken to recording my games on paper (sad, I know!) just to check and I have only acheived two wins to nil in over forty games.

Also, is it deliberatly difficult to win two consecutive dino championships? Again, I have won the league a good fifteen or twenty times, but rarely have I won it back to back and never three in a row. You conquor all before you, winning four or five games to win the championship and then next season, bang - 4-0 loss to the team that's just come up and in a relegation dogfight. Is this deliberate too?

Finally, transfers? Could you not have dino attributes (basic ones like speed, pass accuracy, vision for long passes) and transfer in from a limited pool? That might add a managerial element to it which may stop it getting a bit samey.

It hadn't occured to me that dinos were stupid! What makes people think they were anyway? Such Dino bigotry should be banned under UK law.

I stopped playing when I could win the first division season in, season out. In my experience the biggest factor in your teammates is AI is your behaviour.

I just won the D1 Championship for the first time... and it took me 18 seasons. lol

I had, and still have, the same problems with defense, my dinos leaving their man to run for the ballcarrier who's about to be caught from behind anyway. My game started to improve when I found that the best defense for my dinos was my offense. I always play the 2-2-1 now, with me on the point up front. If, after the bounce, I get the ball, I immediately kick it downfield as far as I can, preferrably into the opponent's endzone. Then I try to keep play in the opponent's end as much as I can. I play Full Forward and course up and down the end zone to give my dinos someone to kick to. If the play seems to be heading back towards our end then I'll come out and get open to get a mark and then kick it immediately into the opponent's endzone again, so my dinos can get back up. But I also like what I call the kick & tackle, where I wait til just before I'm tackled by an opponent, and then kick the ball into their endzone and race just behind him for the ball. Soon as he grabs it up, I tackle him for a score!

And you may have noticed I say kick and mark (to catch) because the game seems to me to be more like a combination of American Football and Aussie Rules. or maybe that's just the way I like to think of it being a fan of Footy.

I'm terrible at the game and never (like most other games) use tactics. The main way I win is just by waiting in the opponents goal for my friends to come up to me, that way he can pass to me if he's being tackled and we score Hope that helped.

Proud member of Seans forum since 14th April 2005. 1 year and still counting.
Now to spam those 30 messages to get into 3rd place in post count.

BlueJohnHook wrote:I just won the D1 Championship for the first time... and it took me 18 seasons. lol

I had, and still have, the same problems with defense, my dinos leaving their man to run for the ballcarrier who's about to be caught from behind anyway.

The single biggest reason for Dinos leaving their man tends to be the human not marking his. You'll find that the dinos tend to play a stronger marking game if you pick a dino (preferably playing a position relevant to yours) and mark them, rather than charging down the ball carrier

Even then though, you will sometimes invariably see some monkey at the back lose his man. You can't stop it every time